Ravenous Role Playing

Strange trees with strange fruit have popped up everywhere in town over the past several days. At first, they were just small shoots jutting through the cobblestones and open markets of the area, but in just a few days they have grown to full-sized trees complete with fruit. Anyone brave enough (or stupid enough) to eat the fruits appear to fall into a coma within a few hours of eating the tasty red morsels, but seem to suffer no ill effects other than the inability to wake up. Where did the trees come from? What is going on with the fruits? How will the PCs get the innocents out of their comas? Answers lie in whatever devious minds of the GMs that wish to pick this up and run with it.

Dagger of Darkness: Paragon Level Artifact

The Dagger is a large sliver of obsidian with a leather wrapped hilt. The Dagger glows a soft purple light when exposed to moonlight.

Item Slot: Weapon
Property: You gain a +4 Item Bonus to Stealth checks.
Property: You gain the Rogue ability to Sneak Attack. If you already have this ability, then your damage dice is increased by one (d6 becomes d8, d8 becomes d10, etc.)
Power (Encounter – Martial, Weapon): Standard Action. You can use unbalancing attack (rogue, 13)

Goals of the Dagger of Darkness:
The Dagger wishes to end as many lives of sentient beings as possible.

Concordance:

• Starting Score: 5
• You gain a level: +1d10
• The final blow in the death of a sentient creature is dealt with the Dagger: +2 (Once per week)
• You accept the surrender of a sentient being: -2

Pleased (16-20)
The Dagger pulses with great power in your hand and feels warm to the touch.

• Power (Encounter – Martial, Weapon): Standard action. You can use dragon tail strike (rogue, 17).

Satisfied (12-15)
The Dagger vibrates slightly in your grip.

• Power (Encounter – Martial): Minor Action. You can use hide in plain sight (rogue, 16).

Normal (5-11)
The Dagger feels like a piece of inanimate glass in your hand.

Unsatisfied (1-4)
The Dagger issues pin pricks of pain into your hand while wielding the blade.

• Special: The Dagger no longer grant a bonus to Stealth checks.

Angered (0 or Lower)
The Dagger slips from your hand at every opportunity.

• Special: The Dagger no longer grant a bonus to Sneak Attack
• Special: You gain a -1 penalty to attacks even when not using the Dagger.

Moving On
When it is time to move on, the Dagger will attempt to embed itself into the current owner with a single thrust before fading from view.

For those few people out there following my blog, you’ll have noticed that I missed my Friday Five post. This is because I was at Tacticon running two sessions for our new D&D4e world/adventure, and just plain did not have time to take a break from the wonderful gaming to write a post. Instead, I decided to give you two bonus articles (this, the “Sunday Seven” title) today. Before I jump into them, I want to thank any Tacticon organizers, coordinators, volunteers, judges and players that may see this. You made Tacticon a special event for me this year, and I can’t wait for Genghis Con to roll around this spring. Now, on to the Sunday Seven.

Game Mastering at Convention Tips

This is a post similar to this one in that it contains links to other articles. The post came just in time for me running four sessions at Tacticon, and I learned quite a bit from them. I know that con season is winding down, but there’s still time to learn from these great posts for later this year and into the next!

TPK is only the beginning!

This article is a great twist on an old experience. Instead of ending a campaign with a TPK (total party kill) perhaps it’s time to start a game with a TPK. What a great twist that gave me several ideas for some adventure ideas, and maybe even a campaign.

GM Spotlight: What Pathfinder Brings to the Table

I ordered my copy of Pathfinder just a few days ago, so I’m still waiting for it to arrive. I can’t comment much on the system as I’ve only seen the beta, and I’m withholding all comments until I see the final product. This article goes into some decent detail about what they like and don’t like about the system. The only thing in the article that I vehemently disagree with is the size comparison of the books. They call the Pathfinder book a doorstop and want to know why they have to lug it around to game with it. They even have a photo of the D&D4e PHB on edge with the Pathfinder book to demonstrate its large size. In all fairness, they should have included the D&D4e DMG in the picture too since the Pathfinder book is for the GM and the players alike. It’s a poor comparison. Also, I just spent the entire weekend lugging my D&D 4e library around with me in order to effectively run my games. If anyone should be complaining about lugging too much paper goods, it should be me sending my chiropractor bill to WotC!

Old Advice Is The Best Advice

This is, indeed, very old advice, but it’s so great and precise that I had to share it as well. Any GM worth his salt not only knows his world, the adventure(s), the monsters and vital NPCs, but he also knows the characters in the players’ hands and the players sitting at the table.

Seven deadly sins that turn neutrals into foes

This article is a brief how-to guide on turning NPCs into enemies. It’s written from the slant of how to do it, but also how to avoid it in case you don’t want the friendly local baker to turn into a hated person by the party.

Improved Initiative

This is a great post by Newbie DM about how to track initiative. I generally do this with a small JavaScript application I wrote years ago, but I didn’t have time to prep the software on my netbook before Tacticon, so I had to resort to the old fashioned method of writing down a list of names with numbers next to them. It slowed the game just a slight bit (especially when lunch was arriving and I was beginning to fade.) Had I read this article before Taacticon instead of just a few minutes ago, I would have had an easier time with running my games. That’s ok. I’ll know this for next time around, and I may ditch my software for this method to see how it works.

Take a Number

I’ve done this for years and years, and I think it’s such a great idea, I wanted to share the “number your minis” idea that Key Our Cars posted about. Take their advice and write a number/letter on every chit, miniature or scrap of cardboard that is used to represent numbers.

People have been vanishing from the slums of the city. This is nothing new and the constabulary of the city don’t much care. However, some of the vanished people were well-to-do folks that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The few witnesses to the kidnappings have reported elves riding large dragonflies picking up several people and flying them into the nearby desert. Now that enough “important” people have been taken, the local government has offered a reward for anyone brave enough to venture into the desert to put an end to the elven raiders.

PS: This is a slight paraphrasing of the hook of the Ashen Sands of Aegandos adventure that just entered beta. It’s from Fliud Games, and I happened to help write the adventure. If you happen to be in the Denver area this weekend, hit Tacticon and track down the Fluid booth where you can pick up a copy of the Player’s Guide to Aegandos and (if there are slots left) play test in the beta of the adventure with me running the games. Check us out!

I missed the Artiface Tuesday post for this week. Again! I’m sorry to have done this, but life has caught up to me now that school has started up. I was up until almost midnight last night doing homework instead of creating artifacts or prepping for the upcoming Tacticon, which is just two days away. I’ve done precious little prep work for the con and I’m running four sessions while there! Oi! I might even miss the Adventure Hook Thursday tomorrow because I’ll be so busy with the prep work. Ugh. I’ll see what I can pull out of the hat for tomorrow, though.

Best wishes, and I hope to be back on a regular posting schedule again next week.